Can you track my iphone without my permission in 2012

Not possible without your permission. You must enable location services access for any app that requests access.

What?

YOur not spekaing to anyone from Apple here. it a user forum like you and I.

Why would I want to track you?

Your cellular carrier can and does track you. They are required to by law, both for your sake (so if you make a call to emergency services they can find you) and for law enforcement and national security purposes. The only way to stop them is to not use a cell phone.

I think your paranoia is showing.

Allan

Are you saving all cell phones are being actively tracked by the associated carrier - each carrier must actively track every cell phone on their network by law? Or just that it is possible for a carrier to track a cell phone when requested by law enforcement or in the event of an emergency with a 911 call, etc. which is required by law?

Yes. All cell phones are being tracked by carriers all the time. And they have been as long as there have been cell phones. For one thing, the carrier needs to know where a phone is so when someone calls it they know which tower to send the call to. To enable this the phone periodically "phones home" to report its location. The carriers record this information and aggregate it to determine network demand so they know when and where to build out more infrastructure. But they can also, with a warrant in the US, tell police where a particular phone was at a particular time. Now or in the past.

Others have started tracking cell phones also. There are a couple of malls that track cell phones of customers as they stroll among the shops. This does not require any software on the phone; they just monitor the signals from the phone. There are databases that match cell phone numbers to names and addresses, so they not only know where your phone is in the mall, they know who you are and what shops you are going to.

The first part is a tad different from when someone asks about their iPhone being tracked. I don't believe the OP is asking about his/her carrier knowing where the phone is so a call can be recieved, etc.